Strongly correlated fermions after a quantum quench

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-thermal relaxation dynamics of strongly correlated spinless fermions in one dimension after a sudden interaction change, revealing universal behavior regardless of initial states and integrability.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the post-quench steady state is non-thermal and independent of initial conditions, using advanced numerical methods for both integrable and non-integrable systems.

Findings

Observables become indistinguishable after relaxation for different initial states.

The quasi-stationary state is non-thermal.

Results hold for both integrable and non-integrable models.

Abstract

Using the adaptive time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group method, we study the time evolution of strongly correlated spinless fermions on a one-dimensional lattice after a sudden change of the interaction strength. For certain parameter values, two different initial states (e.g., metallic and insulating), lead to observables which become indistinguishable after relaxation. We find that the resulting quasi-stationary state is non-thermal. This result holds for both integrable and non-integrable variants of the system.